Episode Overview

Podcast: New Books Network
Episode: Jacqueline Riding, "Hard Streets: Working-Class Lives in Charlie Chaplin’s London"
Host: Dr. Miranda Melcher
Guest: Dr. Jacqueline Riding
Date: February 5, 2026

In this episode, Dr. Miranda Melcher interviews historian, art historian, and curator Dr. Jacqueline Riding about her book Hard Streets: Working-Class Lives in Charlie Chaplin’s London (Profile Books, 2026). The conversation uses the life of iconic filmmaker Charlie Chaplin—and his South London contemporary, the now lesser-known George Tinworth—to open up a vivid, nuanced world of working-class lives in late 19th and early 20th-century South London. Traversing themes of migration, poverty, female labor, social mobility, alcoholism, arts, and the social fabric of Lambeth and Walworth, the discussion paints a granular portrait of a densely populated and often overlooked area during a time of massive social, political, and cultural upheaval.

Guest Introduction & Book Origins

[01:25] Jacqueline Riding introduces herself and the book’s beginnings

• Dr. Riding is a historian, art historian, and curator, with experience on film and TV projects including Mr. Turner and Peterloo.
• She resides in Lambeth, South London—the same neighborhood where Charlie Chaplin grew up.
• The seed for the book was planted during daily rides on the “famous 59 bus,” where she noticed frequent plaques “Charlie Chaplin lived here.”

  “I live in Charlie Chaplin’s London. And that was the start of it. That was the beginning of the idea for the book.” (01:45, Riding)

Central Characters: Chaplin, Tinworth & the Microcosm of Lambeth

[03:08] Charting the Parallel Lives of George Tinworth & Charlie Chaplin

• While Chaplin is the book’s hook, Riding focuses on both Chaplin and Lambeth-born George Tinworth (b. 1843), an artist and pottery worker who, like Chaplin, escaped deep poverty through the arts.
• Tinworth’s unpublished handwritten autobiography was a new discovery for Riding, allowing her to weave together the lived experiences of two generations.
• Both men’s lives encapsulate the transformation of South London across 70 years, providing “a deep dive into what’s happening in the streets of this area” (05:56, Riding).

South London Transformed: Migration, Urban Growth, Slums

[06:45] Life and Change in Walworth and Lambeth

• In 1800, Walworth was semi-rural with a horticultural economy (~15,000 people), but by 1900, packed over 120,000 people into less than a square mile.
• This explosion was driven by rural unemployment and migration (the “Hungry Forties”) and resulted in the development of slums and immense pressure on urban infrastructure.
• The industrial corridor south of the river, including Lambeth, was centered on potteries such as Doulton’s—the very workplace Tinworth would later join.

Key quote:

“By 1900, that same area, which is less than a square mile, was actually home to 120,000 people... Just those figures really indicate what happened in the area.” (08:10, Riding)

Social & Political Context: Chartists, Poor Law, Education

[10:39] Working-Class Activism and Institutional Change

• South London’s history is often overshadowed by the East End or Westminster, but it was a center of major political activism—like the Chartist meeting on Kennington Common pushing for universal male suffrage.
• The 1834 Poor Law shifted welfare from “outdoor relief” (food/money in homes) to the much-maligned workhouse system, which directly impacted both Tinworth’s and Chaplin’s families.
• On education: compulsory schooling arrived late (1870), and both men largely missed out—Tinworth entirely, Chaplin’s only real schooling was in a pauper institution.

  “You’d think that Chaplin would be caught up within the new sort of thrust for education for the poor working class. But he slightly loses out.” (17:54, Riding)

The Shadow of Alcohol & the “Temperance Question”

[19:43] Alcoholism as Family Tragedy and Social Preoccupation

• Both Chaplin and Tinworth’s fathers suffered from alcohol addiction, with severe ramifications:

  “He’s described...as ‘the jarring note...that constant thrum, that sort of almost demonic thrum, that...they have on themselves and their family.’” (20:23, Riding, quoting a biographer on Joshua Tinworth)

• Alcoholism was both a cause and a symptom of despair in working-class homes.
• The temperance movement, though sometimes paternalistic and class-biased, targeted genuine problems.

Pathways into the Arts: From Street Theatre to Doulton’s Pottery

[24:34] Everyday Arts, Social Mobility, Community

• South London’s vibrant folk culture gave rise to street theatre, music, fairs like the Camberwell Fair, and May Day parades—an improvised creative education.

  “Street theatre: a very simple free entertainment for the working class...Musicians on the streets...parade...food...wonderfully stimulating things, little vignettes.” (25:10, Riding)

• Music halls and newly-founded institutions like the Lambeth School of Art provided rare official routes into the arts, while staff roles (cleaners, life models) offered both livelihoods and access.
• Tinworth, gifted in woodcarving, was encouraged to become one of the first working-class students at Lambeth School of Art—eventually joining Doulton’s and gaining international recognition.
• Community was vital:

  “The art schools and the music hall is a community. It’s somewhere to belong...All these things sit side by side and they feed into each other.” (33:10, Riding)

Gender, Motherhood, and Everyday Survival

[39:36] The Essential, Overlooked Role of Women

• Mothers bore the brunt of maintaining households and the elusive “respectability” so vital to working-class status; food, especially Sunday lunch, was a key marker.

  “It seemed to me...the pressure on the women to maintain standards...The women were responsible for the sense of a concept of respectability within the working class.” (41:10, Riding)

• Chaplin’s mother, even in dire poverty, insisted on the ritual of Sunday lunch for dignity’s sake.

Mapping Poverty: Charles Booth & The Fluidity of Working-Class Life

[44:02] Statistical and Anecdotal Evidence Combined

• Maps and notebooks from reformer Charles Booth provide rich, granular data on poverty’s varying shades—but, as later researchers like Rowntree show, working-class lives were dynamic, not static.

  “This up and down, this sort of moving between [levels of poverty] is a crucial sort of aspect of the working class experience.” (47:23, Riding)

Music Halls: Dreams of Escape

[48:45] Opportunity and Exhaustion in the Spotlight

• Music halls offered rare rags-to-riches opportunities (e.g., star performer Dan Leno could earn £80/week), but most endured grueling, unstable work for little pay.

  “You could earn huge amounts of money if you just had, you know, the right opportunities and the right person saw you and loved you as a performer, then you could get on.” (52:18, Riding)

The Robert Browning Settlement: Forgotten Engines of Community

[53:08] Social Settlement and Pride in Place

• Riding highlights her accidental discovery of the Robert Browning Settlement in Walworth—a hub for Christian socialism, labor politics, adult education, and working-class/middle-class cooperation.
• The experience of connecting with the family of an 1898 “May Queen,” Emily Rivet, underlines the closeness of past and present.

  “If you’re dipping into the 19th century, you are just a few generations away from each other. And these people are your grandparents and your parents...what was history suddenly becomes the present, becomes the here and now.” (56:57, Riding)

Memorable Quotes

• “I live in Charlie Chaplin’s London. And that was the start of it. That was the beginning of the idea for the book.” (01:45, Riding)
• “By 1900, [Walworth] was actually home to 120,000 people...Just those figures really indicate what happened in the area.” (08:10, Riding)
• “The art schools and the music hall is a community. It’s somewhere to belong.” (33:10, Riding)
• “It seemed to me...the pressure on the women to maintain standards...the burden...was on the mothers.” (41:10, Riding)
• “If you’re dipping into the 19th century, you are just a few generations away from each other...[it] becomes the here and now.” (56:57, Riding)

Notable Timestamps

• 01:25 – Guest intro & genesis of the book
• 03:27 – Introducing George Tinworth as Chaplin’s local predecessor
• 06:45 – The transformation of Walworth & Lambeth: rural to industrial slums
• 10:39 – Social and political context: Chartists, Poor Law, education
• 19:43 – Alcohol, temperance, and the reality of working-class life
• 24:34 – Entryways into the arts for kids like Chaplin & Tinworth
• 39:36 – Women’s vital, pressured role in maintaining home and “respectability”
• 44:02 – Charles Booth’s poverty survey and the fluidity of experience
• 48:45 – Music halls: opportunity & precarity
• 53:08 – The Robert Browning Settlement & reconnecting past to present
• 56:57 – Family connections and the immediacy of history

Final Thoughts & Looking Ahead

Dr. Riding expresses her profound sense of personal and historical connection through the project, reflecting on “how everything that happens in the past absolutely impacts on the present.” Her next major work will return her to the 18th century, with a dual biography of artists Gainsborough and Reynolds, but her research into South London’s working class and its creative outlets continues to spark new avenues of interest.

For those looking to understand the everyday lives behind a famous silhouette like Chaplin’s—and the resilience and creativity of London’s working poor in the face of overwhelming hardship—this conversation and Riding’s book offer rich, accessible insight.